Our long-awaited Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 review finally tackles the high-resolution, panels-flipping, Windows Mobile super-phone. Does it live up to the hype?
Review summary of the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1:
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 The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 doesn't quite live up to the hype, but given some serious effort on Sony Ericsson's part to dramatically improve and fortify the Panels interface experience, this could be a much better device in the future. Right now, the panels are useful, but spare, and the best panel, the multimedia panel, is really just a way of accessing what would be a menu on another S/E device. We want Panels with cool features; Panels that actually do stuff, not just goldfish swimming around. Beyond the Panels, though, there is mostly a very plain build of Windows Mobile, with a few surprises, especially in the multimedia department. The phone is still a very nice device, with a top-notch Web browser, great productivity apps and the best hardware specs around. But it could have been designed better, and it could have come to market with so much more. Release: November 2008. Price: $800.
Pros: Great screen. Fast networking. Excellent multimedia experience, from the menus to the players. Great traveling companion, even abroad.
Cons: Panels interface leaves us wanting much, much more. Lacks robust messaging options. Hardware design lacking.
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Full Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 Review:
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Hardware design - Good
With all of its brushed metal and polished black accents, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 achieves a sort of executive look. The build quality certainly feels solid, which makes sense since the going rumor is that HTC had some hand in the hardware design and build. There are HTC accents throughout the phone's software, and the device seems to have no more appropriate competitor than the HTC Touch Pro (or HTC Fuze on AT&T). Both phones have large, high-resolution touch screens, though the Xperia X1 tops even the Touch Pro's VGA screen with it's high-resolution 800 by 480 pixel display.
Both this phone and the HTC Touch Pro have a slide-out full-QWERTY keyboard, though the keyboard on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is only a 3-row layout, and lacks many of the symbol keys and dedicated application keys we like to find on a smartphone. In fact, the phone lacks enough buttons overall, as the front of the phone gets only "Send" and "End," an "OK" button for Windows Mobile and a dedicated "Panels" button. The phone gets an optical mouse in the center button, but Sony Ericsson wisely doesn't use the mouse as a pointer, as we disliked on the Samsung Epix, and instead finger gestures to move the menus up and down, forward and back. We liked the optical mouse, it made using the phone easier, especially on menus that were designed by Sony Ericsson. The mouse has an unfortunate ridge around it, which makes it more functional as a 4-way button, but offers less room for finger scrolling. We miss the old days of the clickwheel, a PDA innovation that Sony pioneered.
While we think the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 has a classy, business-conscious look, we weren't thrilled by some of the aesthetic design choices. The keys on the face of the phone are cut at diagonals, making each key a perfect triangle. We didn't think this looked cool enough to warrant making the keys harder to use. Also, the battery cover on our prototype review unit is a brushed metal, while the grips on the sides of the phone are more sanded. The phone has a messy look up close, with these textural inconsistencies and other divets and facets on the phone giving it a sort of industrial look. While the HTC Touch Pro is smooth and almost seamless, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is riveted, if not riveting.
Interface design - Good
For the most part, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 uses the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional user interface. However, the traditional Today Screen has been replaced by Xperia Panels, or more specifically a Panel Manager. The Panel Manager handles two types of panels: Native panels and Web panels.
Native panels are the most intriguing part, since they offer Java Micro Edition support and 3D graphics acceleration. The latter aims to ensure smooth graphics performance, but the 3D Fish panel, which was supposed to demonstrate the phone's graphical prowess, only proved there is still work to be done to take full advantage of the hardware. On the other hand, the Java ME support enables gaming houses like Electronic Arts to roll out gaming titles such as Need for Speed on a Windows Mobile-powered smartphone.
Sony Ericsson has also used native panels to allow users to customize their own home screen to some extent, as well as adding a Media Experience, similar to what we've seen on Sony Ericsson feature phones and Sony devices like the PlayStation Portable. However, we had expected to see Sony Ericsson take native panels in a more aggressive direction, where you for instance got a Walkman panel with a real Walkman player, a Cyber-shot panel and a Java gaming panel. It's easy to imagine how cool that would have been.
We had also hoped to see some serious integration of Google services on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, which would have been a nice addition to the already existing Windows Mobile functionality. However, the current Google panel consists of a search bar and a collection of bookmarks. Open the Calendar or Gmail icons, and the phone tosses you to Internet Explorer Mobile (unless you wisely make Opera your default browser first).
According to the Sony Ericsson SDK, there are several drawbacks to Xperia Panels when used on Windows Mobile. In short, don't expect to see any radical changes of Windows Mobile functionality coming out of this developer initiative, as you'll likely have to wait for future Microsoft updates in that regard.
Calling - Very good
Calls on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 sounded great on AT&T's HSDPA network. Side-by-side against an HTC Fuze on the same network, the Xperia X1 did a better job reducing background noise, and gave us some nice auditory feedback as well. Callers reported clear, if a little deep-sounding, voices. The calling screens get something of a facelift, and here we start to see the Sony Ericsson brushed metal motif emerge, with a cool faceplate look for the dialing screen. Unfortunately, call handling is managed mostly with the Windows Mobile menu, so conference calling means plucking the tiny option out of a long list. Holding the talk button, on the other hand, activates the speakerphone, which is an unusual, and unmarked, choice.
The phone synchronizes perfectly with a Window desktop, so all our contacts came through okay. This is one area where Sony Ericsson should really think about designing a new panel. There are loads of cool contact-list ideas out there, and HTC developed most of them. We'd like to see something better than the Windows Mobile standard, small-type list on this phone. We also wish that the Panels interface would support live, while-we-type searching of the address book from the contact screen, which is one of our favorite features in Windows Mobile. Unfortunately, this only works from the Windows Mobile Today panel, or Windows Mobile OS like we usually call it.
The speakerphone on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 was not nearly loud enough for our tastes, which is too bad, considering this phone's multimedia prowess. We also couldn't find a voice recognition app, so there was no voice dialing on this phone. That seems like a serious omission on a top-of-the-line, $800 cell phone. Bluetooth worked fine in our tests, and paired easily with all our headsets and speakerphones.
Messaging - Mediocre
Though a few other features, like the Web browser and the media player, get an upgrade from the standard Windows Mobile kit, the messaging apps on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 are decidedly WinMo. This is great if you use an Exchange server for e-mail and Windows Live for Instant Messaging. If not, you're pretty much out of luck. Oh, you can set up your own e-mail account, of course, but you won't get the best features of Outlook Mobile, like HTML e-mail handling. Then, you could even buy and download a third-party IM app, but again, for this price good messaging, up to and including Gtalk and quick access to popular social networks, should have come equipped. The SMS client on Windows Mobile is threaded, but looks small and dated on the phone's large, high-resolution screen. As with many actors on television, high-def isn't doing Windows Mobile any favors.
The keyboard is another issue. The keys were well-shaped, and we liked the soft-touch finish. But the top row is obstructed by the side of the upper slide. This seems mostly due to the phone's unique, though perhaps wholly unnecessary, curved shape. We like the curve, it's cool and different, but if it makes typing more difficult, we'll go without it. Still, it feels like Sony Ericsson might have pushed out a bit farther, giving the keys some more room. Perhaps they could have even squeezed in a fourth row of keys, since it felt like the device was lacking in a variety of dedicated keys, and the numbers could use their own row instead of being jumbled in at a slant among the letters.
Scheduling and productivity - Very good
If there is one thing that the customizable panel does well, it keeps you on schedule. There is room for calendars and multiple clocks, and if that isn't enough you can make multiple customized panels, or just fidget with the regular old Windows Mobile via the Windows Mobile Today panel, which does scheduling and productivity better than it does just about anything else. We obviously would like to see a serious update to the business calendar.
Multimedia - Very good
The multimedia interface on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 steals the show. It looks just like the cross-navigation bar we've seen on other Sony Ericsson devices recently, like the Sony Ericsson W760, except with a little more visual panache on this phone. Honestly, it looked so good, responded so well to touch and was so organized that we wished this were the entire phone interface. The music player on the phone is also a serious improvement over Windows Media Player, though if you dig too deep through the interface you'll get caught in the older player's snare. We still prefer the Walkman music player, which is similar but has better playlist creation tools and some cool interface effects. Why Sony refuses to enlist their best music player on their best smartphone is beyond our comprehension.
We also had a lot of trouble with the video player on the phone. It didn't recognize any of our .mp4 files, though it had no trouble with some .m4v files (also h.264) that we created to use on our Apple iPhone 3G. Videos looked fantastic on the phone's display, but we honestly think 800 by 480 pixels is overkill, especially if there isn't an easy was to get high-resolution video onto the phone. We'd like to see some good, quick media software from Sony Ericsson, or perhaps even some content partnerships to take advantage of all those pixels.
Web browsing - Very good
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 uses the Opera browser, and in fact it looks almost exactly like the same app on the HTC Touch Pro. Strangely, the phone also comes with Internet Explorer, a far inferior browser, and all of the user manuals and default settings point to IE instead of Opera. But avoid the former and enjoy the latter, because Opera is a great browser, and it chewed through our image-heavy homepage with no trouble. We'd like to see better navigation controls, perhaps a zoom button or two and a mini map would be nice for faster browsing. But we can't complain about how pages looked. Still, we aren't convinced that users are benefiting from all of those pixels.
We were impressed by the Web browser's speed, but it wasn't the best we've seen, even on AT&T's HSDPA network. We tried the Xperia X1's browser head-to-head against the Apple iPhone 3G, on both AT&T's network and our home Wi-Fi network, and in all cases the iPhone's Safari browser finished loading the page at least five seconds before the X1 could finish. Plus, the Safari browser looked more accurate and displayed more of the page on screen at once than the default Opera view. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is still a great phone for browsing, but it isn't the best there is.
Camera - Good
The camera on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 was okay, and the images it produced could be clean and clear, or blurry and unusable. At first glance the camera's feature set seems exceedingly impressive. Besides the 3.2-megapixel sensor, the camera has auto focus with a 2-stage shutter button, a touch focus option that lets you tap on the portion of the picture you want in focus, and plenty of other camera tweaks. Unfortunately, we found this camera's focus to be way off, whether we were using the full auto, the touch focus or even the macro mode. Touch focus seemed to never take the picture we were after, but even stranger are the issues we had getting a clean self portrait. The camera kept messing with our head, literally. It didn't help that we've had obnoxiously grey weather for the entire testing period, but we also tried this camera under bright afternoon light and our studio lamps.
Rainy day
You can see where things are going to go wrong in this rainy shot. Colors are bleeding when they're bright, but noise is kept to a minimum, even in the low-light spots.
Iron fence
Here's where our problems with touch focus begin. The second spike on the iron fence should have been in focus in this shot. Instead, as we'll see most of the time, it's really the background that get the attention.
Night shot
Noise is kept on the down-low in this shot of a street lamp at night. Still, even with a stabilized camera it's tough to make out the guys climbing the scaffolding behind the lamp post.
Blustery sunrise
Lamp posts
It was a foggy morning, so we'll forgive the blur and some of the bleeding lamps. Colors look good, too. We wish there was more detail, and the pictures fall apart at full zoom, but they look good fit on the screen, nonetheless.
eBay shot
Things look pretty good on the lower half of the card, but at the top, the important Asst. numbers are blurred, making this one a bust for eBay use.
Self portrait outdoors
Self portrait indoors
Who knows what was happening here. In the top photo, we had to double check to make sure touch focus wasn't accidentally leading the camera astray, but actually full auto focus was engaged. In the second photo, it's hard to believe but this is the most clear picture we got out of a series of 5 consecutive tries. It's hard not to take personal offense.
Little dude macro test
We were hoping to get up closer for more detail, but this is as close as we could get before the camera's focus fell apart.
Touch focus tree branch
The camera again fails the touch focus test, missing the fuzzy end of the tree branch.
Evergreen
The camera really came through in this shot, delivering a nice, dynamic look with the cool colors of the overcast sky.
GPS navigation - Very good
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 comes with Google Maps preloaded, and a trial version of the Wayfinder Navigation app comes included on the install disk in the box. With Google Maps, the phone was very quick to find our location, perhaps thanks to the QuickGPS software that preloads some of the satellite information onto your phone in advance. Here again, with the GPS navigation services, Sony Ericsson has missed an opportunity for a Panel. We would like to see some interesting location-based services with this phone, especially since the GPS is performing so well. How about a dedicated search and recommendations panel for GPS, like the applications that are so popular right now on the Apple iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1 Android Market.
Laptop sidekick - Excellent
As an Internet Sharing device, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 was one of the fastest tethered modems we've used. The phone tops out at 7.2Mbps HSDPA, speeds we don't even have available in the U.S. On AT&T's 3G network in suburban New Jersey, we regularly clocked download speeds in excess of 1.8Mbps, which is the fastest we've seen on a smartphone so far. Add to this the phone's Wi-Fi connection, and you might not even need to take your notebook out of your bag. With a standard miniUSB jack, the phone can easily charge with an available cable on the road. We couldn't ask for more in a travel companion.
Price and availability
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is available now from SonyStyle and online at Best Buy for $800.
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